It has been written about in article after article, discussed in op-ed after op-ed: most residents and employees of Boston don’t want this city to host the 2024 Olympics. And Boston Mayor Martin Walsh decided — at least according to a document he signed in January — that he didn’t want to hear about it from the City’s employees.
Walsh signed The Boston 2024 Joinder Agreement in late January, effectively placing a gag order on city employees. The joinder agreement stated that “employees, officers and representatives” of Boston cannot make statements that “reflect unfavorably on, denigrate or disparage, or are detrimental to” the Olympic bid, and that they must each promote the bid and various organizations related to it “in a positive manner.”
It sounds harsh. However, Laura Oggeri, chief communications officer for the City of Boston, said in a statement on Jan. 21 that Walsh meant no ill will by signing the agreement.
“Mayor Walsh is not looking to limit the free speech of his employees and, as residents of Boston, he fully supports them participating in the community process,” she said. “The Mayor wants to ensure that all City employees are encouraged to share their opinions on the Olympics without worrying about consequences of any kind.”
Nowhere in the joinder agreement did it say that city employees would be punished for speaking out, but it was quite a strongly worded suggestion. And people got angry, with many claiming that it violated freedom of speech. So today, Walsh renegotiated the agreement by entirely cutting out the articles in question.
The complete 180 may seem obvious, but Walsh told The Boston Globe on Tuesday that he didn’t realize the negative connotations the agreement would have.
“Now it is clear that this new agreement doesn’t place any type of so-called gag order,” he told the Globe. “I think the issue of clarifying the language is very important for the transparency of what we want to do here in Boston in pursuing the Olympics.”
In the revised joinder agreement, which Walsh signed Tuesday, any language that casts the impression of silencing anyone’s voice was removed. The city and the United States Olympics Committee (USOC) also removed a paragraph that would forbid the city from releasing documents having to do with the Olympic bid.
A statement released Tuesday by the mayor’s office stated that the language used in the joinder agreement was “boilerplate language” that has been historically signed by cities that receive an Olympic bid. In the statement, Walsh also reaffirmed his commitment to free speech.
“I continue to encourage all residents, including city employees, to share their opinions over the coming months,” he said. “My top priority is to ensure an open and transparent process, and it is important that any proposal is shaped by the input and ideas of people from every neighborhood in order to offer the greatest benefit to our city.”
But we can’t help but think that this seems like a bit of a cop-out for the mayor. It’s disconcerting that he seems to have signed it simply because it’s historically signed. Thought he made adjustments, there was once a stipulation in the agreement that stated that city employees are forbidden from speaking out in a negative manner. And more than that, it stated that they must promote it.
The contradictions here are concerning. So far, Walsh hasn’t done anything to make the public believe that he’s not being communicative — in fact, there have been nine community meetings scheduled to speak about the U.S. bid — but there is still the worry that our state leaders aren’t listening to our concerns about the Olympics.
Besides the two articles in question that were cut out, the rest of the agreement is a lot of business jargon that the average person probably doesn’t care about. There’s a lot of important business information in the joinder, and it’s comforting to think he signed the agreement to protect the business and commercial rights of those in Boston. But the decision doesn’t just affect businesses. It affects each and every resident of Boston. If Boston gets the Olympic bid, our city will see a tourism boost of millions of people in 2024.
To think that an agreement that has been “historically signed” silences the voices of the city employees who will be taking the brunt of the influx is unnerving. All current college students will be gone by 2024, but the city employees, such as the people who work for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, for example, are the people whose voices matter most.
Language is powerful. It’s not really fair for Walsh to publish a statement that restrictive, and then take it back. It’s also not really fair that he just took out the paragraphs in question without offering a discussion about why he signed the document in the first place. It seems like a quick fix. It’s comforting that he realizes the error of his ways, but as a city, we need to ensure that these people are heard.
